SOURCE: A review of The Eagle Kite, in Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Vol. 48, No. 7, March 1995, pp. 234-35.

In the following review, Sutton finds The Eagle Kite too ambiguous in its handling of the subject matter.

When Liam's mother Katherine tells him that his father Philip contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion, Liam knows she's lying. He knows from his school sex ed classes that such a risk has become near-impossible, but he also suddenly remembers, "clearer every moment like a photograph negative in a developing tank," the time three years ago when he saw his father secretly embrace a young man on the beach near the family's summer cottage. Now Philip has moved back to that cottage, leaving Liam and Katherine in New York with many secrets between them. This is a tough portrait of a family in crisis, each member struggling between love and...